SNOW: In The Guardian, Heather Mallick of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation calls on Britons to "pull yourselves together" - a few inches of snow is nothing compared to the 25cm snowstorms seen in Canada. While Charlie English, author of The Snow Tourist, feels that we have got carried away with talk of the worst snowfall in years. The Independent'sStina Backer says to a born-and-bred Viking like herself, it never ceases to amaze how much fuss a few flakes can create in this country. John Walsh says so this is what it's like in the Siberian steppes, is it? He says he is pleasantly surprised. The Sun'sFergus Shanahan says that we're already covered in the Brown stuff, and now we're smothered in the white stuff. As usual, we couldn't cope.

The Daily Telegraph'sTom Leonard writes that Americans are laughing at the British unpreparedness as the UK experiences a "titchy" snowfall in comparison to US standards. Christopher Howse writes that snow is glorious, although broken hips, missed flights and lost income are no joke. Yet children have it right: the snow is beautiful and fun, and the disruption it causes is quite proper. In The Times, Alice Miles wonders if we have really become a nation of infants. Does Downing Street really need to "monitor" the situation, as it was yesterday? It snows. We are told not to drive. We drive. We get stuck. We blame someone else. In the Daily Express, Stephen Kahn says the snow played havoc in the Square Mile yesterday, but the lack of staff in the City served as a timely reminder that London still requires personal contact to function.

POLITICS:The Guardian'sGeorge Monbiot senses a growing apathy among British voters who steadily believe that every party is as bad as each other. He argues that we are trapped in a spiral of political alienation with the public merely leaving politics to the politicians. In The Times, shadow chancellor George Osborne argues that the next government will face the highest budget deficit in modern British history and the urgent task of delivering better value for taxpayers' money. How appropriate, says Patrick O'Flynn in the Daily Express, that the man at the centre of the final collapse of New Labour as a popular force should be Peter Mandelson, the very man who invented it. Stephen Kahn says the swing in the opinion polls against the government is only to be expected as the economic incompetence of Brown and Darling becomes more apparent by the day. In The Independent, Steve Richards believes there is a widely held assumption that the Conservatives will win the next election. But the politicians and pundits are premature in predicting the outcome so confidently.

PROTEST: While the strikers at energy plants around the country numbered only a few thousand, The Guardian'sPolly Toynbee believes it was high octane in political resonance. The only surprise is that it has taken so long to surface. The Independent'sDominic Lawson says the BNP has seized on the foreign workers dispute with relish, circulating posters declaring: 'British Jobs for British Workers. It's time to strike back. When we say it, we mean it!' The Daily Mail'sRichard Littlejohn believes the strikes are the inevitable consequence of the government's slavish devotion to the European union and 11 years of reckless, unlimited immigration. The free market is rigged against the refinery workers. In The Times, David Aaronovitch says the trouble with the case being made by the Lindsey oil refinery workers is that it appears not to have been quite true.